Most people arent base, but a few base people do tend to try and take advantage of most. If you look to your left and right you will probably see an immediate family member, they are not out to get you. If you look a bit further, probably a co-worker, still not out to get you, if you look a bit more, maybe a boss, they might not like you, but they still need you, and the good ones respect you.
You sir who say people are base animals are wrong. Animals arent even base animals. They are complex and emotional and demonstrate compassion and mercy.
Treat a man like a psychopath enough though, and eventually you'll get one. That is the problem we have. We Americans are being brainwashed to see everyone and everything not us or providing us with entitlement as a threat. Whatever non-american country AC is from, I wish more Americans saw it that way.
After reading a few comments here and there I think the general consensus is he's a bit wierd, this Lanier guy. I doubt it has as much to do with his opinion as how he states it.
The language and lack of formality he uses seems a bit like some of the strange anonymous rants I have created. He's probably not even putting forth a political opionion on the matter just sharing his opinion and waiting for discourse.
Logic dictates that you can't eliminate anonymity completely. Some people or some entities will always outsmart the systems and measures you put in place.
So comes an old and funny proverb... locks keep honest people out. UID's only identify gentlemen.
Its funny you mention this because I remember a fork of open PowerVR drives and playing quake3 under linux many many moons ago. Though they could be buggy sometimes.
This is really good. But I would like to refine it some by adding a few things.
Complexity does not correlate with depth. Art can be lowfi and good. Run good on average or slightly worse specs, not just barely able to run on high end specs. Never use grinds to keep a player playing. At worst use them to set a mood or challenge. Realistic systems can work with arcade or surreal systems. Challenge is good.
I havent seen a game follow these princeples in ages. I mean for fucks sake, modern FPS's have a grind mechanic because publishers are afraid of punishing the players who suck or properly implementing different difficulty settings.
Ok, binspam me all you want but I feel the need to be accurate and clear here so I am posting what I can.
In the summer of 1994, Aum established its own "government" in opposition to the Japanese government (Reader: 81). Similar in organization to that of the Japanese nation, Aum’s governmental structure promoted Asahara’s personal "imperial aspirations" (Reader: 82). On July 9, 1994, a serious gas leak lead to reports of Aum members running in gas masks from a facility building. Trees and grass in the area suffered evident, unnatural damage (Reader 78). Finally, in January 1995, the link between the Matsumoto incident and the gas leak was made public (Reader: 83).On March 19, 1995, police entered Aum headquarters in Osaka and arrested three members for an alleged abduction of a disruptive, disobedient member (Reader: 85).
On March 20, 1995, in the midst of morning rush hour, ten highly placed members boarded five trains at different stations. At a predetermined point in time, the ten members punctured bags of sarin wrapped in newspaper with umbrellas as they left their trains (Reader: 86). The Kasumigaseki Station suffered the worst of the attack. The time and place appear to have been deliberately selected, as Kasumigaseki Station is located under many government offices and the National Police Agency’s headquarters (Reader: 87). Twelve people died and thousands were incapacitated in this March gassing (Reader: 87).
You will see that the police raided Aums headquarters on the 19th of march, one day prior to the attacks. There is some confusion around all of this. This is what I'm refering to.
Ok some corrections, the cult leader is in Japanese custody and has been convicted. He's currently being evaluated for insanity, his execution keeps getting postponed. I may be incorrect on the details of his incarceration prior to the attacks.
Needless to say the japanese had ample evidence to keep an eye on him and his compatriates for a long time, yet didnt act until after the bombings. His cult was nothing knew and had already had clashes with the government before.
Hell, I'll bite, the government of Tokyo let the cult leader who is responsable for the subway attacks loose prior to the attacks. They had this guy, they could have charged him and put him away but he got let loose. He never faced punishment for what his cult is alledgedly accused of.
These are not random ordinary citizens in general we need to worry about. These are special cases. Not something that can be fixed by a blanket legislation like the original article is talking about.
The point I was trying to make by linking Edwards Sibel is that 9/11 could have been stopped if it wasnt for the mess that secrecy had created. Its not secracy or else.
The FBI knew about the first time the towers were going to be bombed.
I'm not even going to try and come to any conclusions on the Tokyo sarin gas attacks, thats an entirely new mess shrouded in conspiracy.
But now that everyone knows they are being wiretapped all the time for basically trivial reasons makes the whole thing pointless. The real bad guys (TM) are untraceable at this point.
If there was a jury in a room with a judge and someone from an agency defending the united states saying "we need to watch this guy". The jury it self could be sworn to secrecy. Voilation of that secrecy would serve as a basic check against evil privacy invasion. Because if the investigator/prosecutor could justify to the peers of the individual being spied on that it was a valid argument. It would all happen in secret. If not it would be found out.
Its a simplistic approach and maybe not the right solution, but a judge may or may not be all you need, but that judge needs oversight, and that person overseeing that judge needs oversight. At some point the trail of secrecy has to end and has to reach the public. Hopefully that point is AFTER the information gathered turns out useful and the bad guy (tm) is caught.
Right now its just wide open for abuse and not much oversight by anyone at all. Except maybe 100 people. And god knows what the NSA, CIA and other agencies are doing with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds is a good example of how this shit is not working. She's a great person for pointing out the flaws in the system and trying to do something about it.
I believe the whole point of this kind of secrecy was to stop direct threats to the government itself from foriegn interests. The foreign interests that are a direct threat to us are so far out of the scope that no secrecy is going to oust them. They are the ones using the secrecy to cover their tracks at this point.
Not to harras the shit ouf of a poor crazy man named Earnest Hemmingway for visiting cuba on occasion.
Not to keep tabs on how the population feels and what a few random crazies are blogging about from time to time. Not to hunt down people on facebook.
If they think they'll get subscribers through a pay wall let them. But there is allot more competition in the market journalist and information market. People and small orginizations without paywalls can produce news. Blogs, and such.
NPR is one that works.
Maybe they should take what they have and use it to buy and syndicate the parts of the market that are thriving without paywalls. Transfer assets and syndicate the small guys.
Wiretapping one person through secret judicial proceedings is different then tapping an entire ISP were communications may have passed to Iran. Its like using a nuke to take out a meth lab.
How secret is secret? I agree with you. That it doesnt work without secrecy as mentioned:
Most people don't understand that, under current judicial precedent, warrantless wiretapping of international communications is constitutional, needing only the approval of the Executive Branch. The secret FISA court is a legislative attempt to regulate this executive power. Without FISA you would have a secret bureaucracy making the decisions instead of a secret court.
But, they do need strict limitations and checks to remain "For the general welfare and defense of the united states". Hence my argument that the current legislation is in a mode of failure. Its allowing the 3 letters to randomly crap shoot. Not target specific individuals, with specific motives, and a specific ability to damage our country. Were doing that just fine by ourselves.
Those secret communications are to and from people in positions of power. Not people working at walmart or playing on their xbox's. Hence why there needs to be limitations on such things as eavesdropping.
An ultimate goal of any democracy aught to be robust and generaly good to all under it, without constantly increasing levels of secrecy, deception, and general 3 letter agency tom-foolery.
This was reserved for extreme cases (the Alamo). Not trivial disputes in Utah or Arizona, or California. This is why hollywood is in California. Because they had the freedom to set up over there. It was a bad business venture in the east.
Your right, but there has always been limitations to how they could use this against us. The key point here is technology makes what you describe to be a much worse and deep problem.
You usto be able to live in the west and smuggle if you disagree'd with what was going on in the east during the civil war. The power elite literally had to march an army across 20 indian filled states to stop you.
Who are the extremists? Those creating legislation or the ones that worked and lived just fine under the previously existing legislation this country has had more or less for the last 60 years prior to the 80's. Those that want monopolies? Those that dont?
Things havent been perfect and some good stuff got overturned or fine tuned since 1980, but allot of crap has been implemented since 1930 which is bullshit to.
Problem is people are just relying on their masters and betters to tell them whats good for them. The government, corps, rich people were never intended to fill that roll in this country.
Fundamentally this countries government is borked. Fundamentally people are looking to a broken set of leaders to fix it for them.
Yet if you own your own secure communications network you are completely immune to this (gov, millionair+, corporations). And those are the guys they need to be monitoring, not joe blow smoe txt pothead shit across the webs.
We have attributed far to much risk to individuals. Therefore individuals privacy - poof.
Chimp grey matter contains similar amount of chemicals as the ones inside the head of those so-called prodigies. Chimp DNA is pretty similar to human DNA too. A chimp is not going to equal Ramanujan in math despite how much willpower it has. They just don't have the ability.
So your argument is just as silly as those "you can do anything if you just try hard enough" bullshit cliches.
If you think it's so simple, go ask the top athletes/musicians why they aren't all number one despite most of them spending much of their life training, practicing etc. You think it's because they lack willpower to push themselves to their limits? They're not trying hard enough?
I may not know my exact max limits, but I know that no matter how much I try I am never going to run as fast as Usain Bolt, and I'm never going to be as good at math as Ramanujan. Thinking otherwise is foolishness or hubris even.
I'm all for people trying to improve themselves and others, but I'm against spreading bullshit. The world would be a better place if more humans fully realized and admitted how crap they were, but still persisted in helping and bettering others despite their limitations.
Thanks, we all have the potential to improve ourselves and accomplish great things (in our own way within our own limitations). But to compare ourselves to others and say we are equal in all things as individuals is just irrational. Ramajam might have been a terrible, terrible gardner, father, comedian, or teacher, I wouldn't know though.
P.S. math is only good enough to kind of model some of the universe some of the time. It is by no means the absolute truth or gateway to universal understanding itself. Its great that there are people who can dedicate their lives to it and specialize in it. But this alone will not create enlightenment.
Yet we justify war, capitol punishment, self defense, euthanisation, assisted suicide, donner party cannabilism. Not all of us, all at once. But there are levels to everything. Killing by itself is not evil. Its the why, how, where, when. Or context.
Slashdot Mirror
Youtube let's plays.
At least their fairly honest =P
IGN and other gaming reviewers tend to be total sell outs.
Most people arent base, but a few base people do tend to try and take advantage of most. If you look to your left and right you will probably see an immediate family member, they are not out to get you. If you look a bit further, probably a co-worker, still not out to get you, if you look a bit more, maybe a boss, they might not like you, but they still need you, and the good ones respect you.
You sir who say people are base animals are wrong. Animals arent even base animals. They are complex and emotional and demonstrate compassion and mercy.
Treat a man like a psychopath enough though, and eventually you'll get one. That is the problem we have. We Americans are being brainwashed to see everyone and everything not us or providing us with entitlement as a threat. Whatever non-american country AC is from, I wish more Americans saw it that way.
After reading a few comments here and there I think the general consensus is he's a bit wierd, this Lanier guy. I doubt it has as much to do with his opinion as how he states it.
The language and lack of formality he uses seems a bit like some of the strange anonymous rants I have created. He's probably not even putting forth a political opionion on the matter just sharing his opinion and waiting for discourse.
Logic dictates that you can't eliminate anonymity completely. Some people or some entities will always outsmart the systems and measures you put in place.
So comes an old and funny proverb... locks keep honest people out. UID's only identify gentlemen.
Its funny you mention this because I remember a fork of open PowerVR drives and playing quake3 under linux many many moons ago. Though they could be buggy sometimes.
I loved my Kyro video card ;p
This is really good. But I would like to refine it some by adding a few things.
Complexity does not correlate with depth.
Art can be lowfi and good.
Run good on average or slightly worse specs, not just barely able to run on high end specs.
Never use grinds to keep a player playing. At worst use them to set a mood or challenge.
Realistic systems can work with arcade or surreal systems.
Challenge is good.
I havent seen a game follow these princeples in ages. I mean for fucks sake, modern FPS's have a grind mechanic because publishers are afraid of punishing the players who suck or properly implementing different difficulty settings.
One word: Chairs
It made the news.
If we were to move were is the best place to go for super good internet? Asia? Japan?
Hahah nice one BoberFett =)
Honestly this is a good thing the government was doing for dairy farmers. To bad to see it may go away.
Ok, binspam me all you want but I feel the need to be accurate and clear here so I am posting what I can.
In the summer of 1994, Aum established its own "government" in opposition to the Japanese government (Reader: 81). Similar in organization to that of the Japanese nation, Aum’s governmental structure promoted Asahara’s personal "imperial aspirations" (Reader: 82). On July 9, 1994, a serious gas leak lead to reports of Aum members running in gas masks from a facility building. Trees and grass in the area suffered evident, unnatural damage (Reader 78). Finally, in January 1995, the link between the Matsumoto incident and the gas leak was made public (Reader: 83).On March 19, 1995, police entered Aum headquarters in Osaka and arrested three members for an alleged abduction of a disruptive, disobedient member (Reader: 85).
On March 20, 1995, in the midst of morning rush hour, ten highly placed members boarded five trains at different stations. At a predetermined point in time, the ten members punctured bags of sarin wrapped in newspaper with umbrellas as they left their trains (Reader: 86). The Kasumigaseki Station suffered the worst of the attack. The time and place appear to have been deliberately selected, as Kasumigaseki Station is located under many government offices and the National Police Agency’s headquarters (Reader: 87). Twelve people died and thousands were incapacitated in this March gassing (Reader: 87).
You will see that the police raided Aums headquarters on the 19th of march, one day prior to the attacks. There is some confusion around all of this. This is what I'm refering to.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_aum01.htm
You cant stop terrorism with secrecy. You need a sane and rational government doing sane and rational things to stop terrorism.
Ok some corrections, the cult leader is in Japanese custody and has been convicted. He's currently being evaluated for insanity, his execution keeps getting postponed. I may be incorrect on the details of his incarceration prior to the attacks.
Needless to say the japanese had ample evidence to keep an eye on him and his compatriates for a long time, yet didnt act until after the bombings. His cult was nothing knew and had already had clashes with the government before.
Hell, I'll bite, the government of Tokyo let the cult leader who is responsable for the subway attacks loose prior to the attacks. They had this guy, they could have charged him and put him away but he got let loose. He never faced punishment for what his cult is alledgedly accused of.
These are not random ordinary citizens in general we need to worry about. These are special cases. Not something that can be fixed by a blanket legislation like the original article is talking about.
The point I was trying to make by linking Edwards Sibel is that 9/11 could have been stopped if it wasnt for the mess that secrecy had created. Its not secracy or else.
The FBI knew about the first time the towers were going to be bombed.
I'm not even going to try and come to any conclusions on the Tokyo sarin gas attacks, thats an entirely new mess shrouded in conspiracy.
But now that everyone knows they are being wiretapped all the time for basically trivial reasons makes the whole thing pointless. The real bad guys (TM) are untraceable at this point.
If there was a jury in a room with a judge and someone from an agency defending the united states saying "we need to watch this guy". The jury it self could be sworn to secrecy. Voilation of that secrecy would serve as a basic check against evil privacy invasion. Because if the investigator/prosecutor could justify to the peers of the individual being spied on that it was a valid argument. It would all happen in secret. If not it would be found out.
Its a simplistic approach and maybe not the right solution, but a judge may or may not be all you need, but that judge needs oversight, and that person overseeing that judge needs oversight. At some point the trail of secrecy has to end and has to reach the public. Hopefully that point is AFTER the information gathered turns out useful and the bad guy (tm) is caught.
Right now its just wide open for abuse and not much oversight by anyone at all. Except maybe 100 people. And god knows what the NSA, CIA and other agencies are doing with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds is a good example of how this shit is not working. She's a great person for pointing out the flaws in the system and trying to do something about it.
I believe the whole point of this kind of secrecy was to stop direct threats to the government itself from foriegn interests. The foreign interests that are a direct threat to us are so far out of the scope that no secrecy is going to oust them. They are the ones using the secrecy to cover their tracks at this point.
Not to harras the shit ouf of a poor crazy man named Earnest Hemmingway for visiting cuba on occasion.
Not to keep tabs on how the population feels and what a few random crazies are blogging about from time to time. Not to hunt down people on facebook.
If they think they'll get subscribers through a pay wall let them. But there is allot more competition in the market journalist and information market. People and small orginizations without paywalls can produce news. Blogs, and such.
NPR is one that works.
Maybe they should take what they have and use it to buy and syndicate the parts of the market that are thriving without paywalls. Transfer assets and syndicate the small guys.
Wiretapping one person through secret judicial proceedings is different then tapping an entire ISP were communications may have passed to Iran. Its like using a nuke to take out a meth lab.
How secret is secret? I agree with you. That it doesnt work without secrecy as mentioned:
Most people don't understand that, under current judicial precedent, warrantless wiretapping of international communications is constitutional, needing only the approval of the Executive Branch. The secret FISA court is a legislative attempt to regulate this executive power. Without FISA you would have a secret bureaucracy making the decisions instead of a secret court.
But, they do need strict limitations and checks to remain "For the general welfare and defense of the united states". Hence my argument that the current legislation is in a mode of failure. Its allowing the 3 letters to randomly crap shoot. Not target specific individuals, with specific motives, and a specific ability to damage our country. Were doing that just fine by ourselves.
Those secret communications are to and from people in positions of power. Not people working at walmart or playing on their xbox's. Hence why there needs to be limitations on such things as eavesdropping.
An ultimate goal of any democracy aught to be robust and generaly good to all under it, without constantly increasing levels of secrecy, deception, and general 3 letter agency tom-foolery.
This was reserved for extreme cases (the Alamo). Not trivial disputes in Utah or Arizona, or California. This is why hollywood is in California. Because they had the freedom to set up over there. It was a bad business venture in the east.
Your right, but there has always been limitations to how they could use this against us. The key point here is technology makes what you describe to be a much worse and deep problem.
You usto be able to live in the west and smuggle if you disagree'd with what was going on in the east during the civil war. The power elite literally had to march an army across 20 indian filled states to stop you.
Who are the extremists? Those creating legislation or the ones that worked and lived just fine under the previously existing legislation this country has had more or less for the last 60 years prior to the 80's. Those that want monopolies? Those that dont?
Things havent been perfect and some good stuff got overturned or fine tuned since 1980, but allot of crap has been implemented since 1930 which is bullshit to.
Problem is people are just relying on their masters and betters to tell them whats good for them. The government, corps, rich people were never intended to fill that roll in this country.
Fundamentally this countries government is borked. Fundamentally people are looking to a broken set of leaders to fix it for them.
Soy milk with aluminum shipped in from china is still good to go!
Yet if you own your own secure communications network you are completely immune to this (gov, millionair+, corporations). And those are the guys they need to be monitoring, not joe blow smoe txt pothead shit across the webs.
We have attributed far to much risk to individuals. Therefore individuals privacy - poof.
Amen.
Chimp grey matter contains similar amount of chemicals as the ones inside the head of those so-called prodigies. Chimp DNA is pretty similar to human DNA too. A chimp is not going to equal Ramanujan in math despite how much willpower it has. They just don't have the ability.
So your argument is just as silly as those "you can do anything if you just try hard enough" bullshit cliches.
If you think it's so simple, go ask the top athletes/musicians why they aren't all number one despite most of them spending much of their life training, practicing etc. You think it's because they lack willpower to push themselves to their limits? They're not trying hard enough?
I may not know my exact max limits, but I know that no matter how much I try I am never going to run as fast as Usain Bolt, and I'm never going to be as good at math as Ramanujan. Thinking otherwise is foolishness or hubris even.
I'm all for people trying to improve themselves and others, but I'm against spreading bullshit. The world would be a better place if more humans fully realized and admitted how crap they were, but still persisted in helping and bettering others despite their limitations.
Thanks, we all have the potential to improve ourselves and accomplish great things (in our own way within our own limitations). But to compare ourselves to others and say we are equal in all things as individuals is just irrational. Ramajam might have been a terrible, terrible gardner, father, comedian, or teacher, I wouldn't know though.
P.S. math is only good enough to kind of model some of the universe some of the time. It is by no means the absolute truth or gateway to universal understanding itself. Its great that there are people who can dedicate their lives to it and specialize in it. But this alone will not create enlightenment.
Yet we justify war, capitol punishment, self defense, euthanisation, assisted suicide, donner party cannabilism. Not all of us, all at once. But there are levels to everything. Killing by itself is not evil. Its the why, how, where, when. Or context.